The Sustainable Development Goals in South Africa: Investigating the need for multi-stakeholder partnerships

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) depends on partnerships between stakeholders from government, the private sector, civil society, academic and research institutions, and international agencies. The United Nations (UN) system provides governance and support from an international perspective; national government creates an enabling and monitoring environment for implementation; civil society creates advocacy and awareness; the academic and research community provides knowledge, technologies and innovation for implementation; and the private sector does much of the implementation towards achieving the SDG targets. These different roles and responsibilities imply that development objectives cannot be achieved in isolation. There is a need for integration and partnerships between the different role players. While partnerships do already exist, there is a call for interventions to strengthen them. Multi-stakeholder platforms are proposed as a mechanism to support and encourage partnerships, and to provide leadership on successful partnerships for achieving the SDGs. Any partnership established needs to be accountable, as well as people- and planet-centred.